Technology overview

XMPP is an open, secure, spam-free, ad-free, decentralized alternative to consumer IM silos like AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Instant Messenger. Under the hood, XMPP is a set of streaming XML protocols that enable any two entities on the Internet to exchange messages, presence, and other structured information in close to real time. XMPP technologies offer several key advantages:

Proven -- the first XMPP technologies (Jabber) were developed by Jeremie Miller in 1998 and are now quite stable; hundreds of developers are working on XMPP technologies, there are tens of thousands of XMPP servers running on the Internet today, and millions of people use XMPP for IM.

Decentralized -- the architecture of the XMPP network is similar to email; as a result, anyone can run their own XMPP server, enabling individuals and organizations to take control of their IM experience.

Secure -- any XMPP server may be isolated from the public XMPP network (e.g., on a company intranet), and robust security using SASL and TLS has been built into the core XMPP specifications.

Extensible -- using the power of XML namespaces, anyone can build custom functionality on top of the core protocols; to maintain interoperability, common extensions are managed by the XMPP Standards Foundation.

Diverse -- a wide range of companies and open-source projects use the XMPP protocols to build and deploy real-time applications and services; you will never get "locked in" when you use XMPP technologies.